


Tradition

by desormais



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, due South
Genre: Divorce, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-03
Updated: 2013-04-03
Packaged: 2017-12-07 09:30:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/746958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/desormais/pseuds/desormais
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s been fighting with her since he was thirteen years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tradition

 

It’s when she stops arguing with him that he knows that it’s over. Finito. Done. They've always argued and, wow, that sounds bad, but up until these last six months she’d always participated, they'd connected, it was part of being them. Sometimes it ended up in bed, sometimes with an icy cold silence that stretched out for days. He’s been fighting with her since he was thirteen years old. That has to mean something. Now it’s like she isn’t even there, like she has already moved on. She won’t even argue with him as she gives him the divorce papers.

 

* * *

 

Two glasses and a dinner plate is all that’s left of the first porcelain set they bought together.

 

* * *

 

They’ve broken doors (one), the flimsy wood panelling shattering under Ray’s heavy boot and leaving a big, gaping hole that there is not much use trying to fix.

 

* * *

 

The cuff-buttons of Ray's best white shirt goes missing after the funeral.

 

Stella's eyes are red and she's angry. Not at Ray, not really. But that's her Dad. Her dad being put into a wooden box and lowered into the ground. Not existing. Being nothing more than slowly decomposing parts. It's not fair, he's not even that old and she's too young to be without him forever. And why would Ray even say something like that? Why would he think she'd find that comforting?

 

She told him when she was thirteen that she didn't believe in God. She doesn't want to hear any well-meaning lies about heaven. Not today. Not from him. Before she's even calmed herself down enough to yell at him he must read it in her face because he's pulling her close and whispering “Shit Stella, I'm sorry, I don't know why I said that”. He's so warm and smells so much like himself and she needs him.

 

The buttons goes clattering over the floor when she helps him wrench the shirt over his head and hands.

 

* * *

 

They’ve broken promises (too many to count): “I'll be home earlier tomorrow”, “I don’t care about kids”, “Yeah, I’ll clean the kitchen”, “I’d never want to change you”.

 

* * *

 

He can’t remember what she looked like at thirteen; the images of her then keeps blurring into the images of her at twenty, at thirty-six, of Stella now with new thin lines around her eyes and deeper ones around her mouth. He walks up to the bar where she’s waiting. Her back is straight and her clothes a bit rumpled from a long workday. The hair is new, shorter. She’s still the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. She puts down her beer-glass on the counter and meets his eyes, the smile she gives him is just the same as before.

 


End file.
